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Terraforming
By the power of magic and the benevolence of the Gods it is possible to change the very nature of landscapes. And when the Armageddon will came closer, a dark twist may cover the lands. The player has a great deal of control on the terrain and is able to plan ahead knowing that a desert tile, with a little effort, may become a grassland. Note: This feature was absent in Vanilla Civilization IV, but was available in some form in Civ II. Premise * To describe land, any tile has a base terrain and some features and improvements. * Base land terrain types are Grassland, Plains, Tundra, Desert, Ice, Marsh, Volcano (last two new for FFH2) * Terrain features are Peak, Hill, Floodplain, Forest (several types), Oasis, Fallout, Scrub * Note that Plain is a terrain type that may remain flat or recive the feature Hill. So you have Flatland Plains and Hill Plains. In other words, in this game the contrary of Hill is not Plain, it is Flatland. * Hill and Peak are special features that can not be removed. Only Khazad special spell may add hill feature to tiles. Any tile without Hill or Peak feature is a Flatland. * Peak is a special feature that is Impassable... but some units may pass on Impassable. * Features are removable by worker or by founding a city on a tile. Note that Floodplain is a feature, so it may be removed leaving only desert. If a City is on desert, it will have penalty on defense, as any unit that stand on desert: it will be advisable to Spring the desert tile. * Forests feature are important to FFH2 and are heavily reworked. You have New Forest, Forest, Ancient Forest, Jungle, Burnt Forest, Smoke, Fire, and several magical instrument to deal with them. (see table below). * Improvements are built by worker: Mine, Windmill, Cottage, Farm, Workshop. They are not considered terraforming. * Unique Features are special FFH2 landmarks. Despite the name they are technically Improvements. They are fixed and often workable by city. * Mana nodes are special improvements, not removable and not workable. You may not found a city on them, as on a Peak. It is vital to have control of them, but to a city they are useless. Terraforming Magic Terrain Spells are the main instrument to terraform the landscape. * Blaze (Fire I): creates Smoke that may spark a Fire (converts jungle into forests via fire and regrowth) * Bloom (FoL): grow a New Forest on any plains or grassland tile (not on mined hills) * Sanctify (Life I): cleanses Hell Terrain in the area and clear City Ruins (and lower AC) * Scorch (Sun I): change Plains to Desert and Snow to Tundra * Snowfall (Ice III): temporarily change terrain to Snow , removes Smoke and Flames * Spring (Water I): change Desert to Plains, removing eventual Scrub. Removes Smoke and Flames in the area. * Vitalize (Nature III): Removes Scrub, Change Snow to Tundra, Tundra to Plains, Desert to Plains, and Plains to Grassland. Floodplain abuse Floodplains are important to the game, thank to their enormous food yield. It is a feature that may appear only in desert. You may upgrade the desert tile using Vitalize to plain and than to grassland to obtain absurd quantity of food. Base yield are: Floodplain/Desert 3 --> Floodplain/Plain 4 / 1 ---> Floodplain/Grassland 5 . So maximum food is a Farm +1 on a Floodplain/Grassland 5 with Sanitation +1 and Agrarianism +1 , for a total of 8 . Such tile will support 3 specialists. Apart the special feature Hill, any tile may have only one feature. Floodplains are a feature, so cannot have a forest on top, even using Bloom. In base FFH, tundra can only be turned to plains with vitalize - FF and Orbis both changed this, as well as most other mods (this info may be out of date). Vitalize can upgrade any terrain up to grassland. In the Fall Further ModMod, Scorching a riverside plains tile will create a floodplains tile after a delay of 30 turns. ( https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/scorch-and-flood-plains-ff.321510/ ) Terraforming process The recipe is: * clean large jungles area with a big mass fire, to be ignited by Blaze and dominated by Spring. * Sanctify (Life I) any Hell Terrain. * Upgrade Desert to Plains with Spring or Vitalize. Any Scrub will be removed in the process. Flood Plains Desert is not able to receive Spring, but may receive Vitalize. * Upgrade Snow to Tundra with Scorch (Sun I) or Vitalize (Nature III) * Upgrade Tundra/Desert to Plains with Vitalize (Nature III). In vanilla FFH2 that plain will not be able to be further upgraded, but several MODMOD changed that. * If it is desirable, upgrade Plains to Grassland with Vitalize (Nature III). * Elven player will cover everything with forests using Bloom. * Stick to FoL enough time that every forest is improved to Ancient Forest. * Non-elves are not able to build lumbermills on Ancient Forest --> Improve Forest befor they turn. * Everyone is able to grow Forest on unimproved Grassland or Plains, Flatland or Hills. * Elf only are able to build cottages or farm on Forest or Ancient Forest, but not Mines. * Marsh is not upgradable. Ice (the snow cap at the Poles are not passable and not upgradable. Grassland Empire Upgrading a plain to grassland you will trade 1 hammer with 1 food, that is generally not a good idea given the importance of production in FFH2. Exception: if you have Aristocratic Farms you are going to lose that hammer anyway, so go for all Grassland Empire. To be Elf or not to be Elf If you are not elf you will have many advantages using FoL (see link ), but pay attention to build Lumbermill in your forests BEFORE they turn into Ancient Forests. If you are stuck with lot of undeveloped Ancient Forests, as an extreme solution you may consider to burn down the Ancient Forest. It is more difficult to set on fire Ancient Forests, but if you succeed you will have Smoke --> Flame --> Burnt Forest --> Forest --> Ancient Forest: you have to patiently wait for the Forest phase, build the Lumbermill, and wait for the Ancient Forest to spawn again. Forest In those times of magic and monsters and heroes, forests were a big part of life. See forest page to understand all the complexity of the new mechanism of forest upgrades, ravaging fires, and religion. Floodplains To optimize floodplains a little exploit is feasble. Remember that floodplains are a feature, so cannot have a forest on top. And remember that floodplains affect only desert... but with a bit of magic, you may upgrade the underlying desert to Plains or Grassland. * Base terrain is Floodplains/desert (gives 3 food) * Vitalize or Spring(?) floodplains/desert and it turns to floodplains/plains (4 food/1hammer) * Vitalize floodplains/plains and it turns to floodplains/grassland (5 food) On top of this you will build improvements. When hell terrain conquer a floodplain, the feature is removed forever. With santify it will revert to desert, or any base terrain you have obtained. Malakim civilization, a desert nomad tribe, will often start on Erebus map in plases full of deserts and rivers, and so floodplains. Note: In base FFH, tundra can only be turned to plains with vitalize - FF and Orbis both changed this, as well as most other mods: Vitalize can upgrade any terrain up to grassland. Base terrain table There are seven base land terrain types. All require 1 movement point to enter, and all gain 1 bonus commerce if next to a river. *changed in respect to Vanilla game Rivers Rivers are exceptional terrain in that they are not "in" or "on" a tile, but they run between tiles. A river is considered adjacent to all tiles that it runs along, including all four tiles which touch a place where the river bends or empties into water (not where it spring!). Rivers supply fresh water to all adjacent tiles. A river adds +1 commerce to all adjacent land tiles, unless they also contain an unimproved forest or jungle. A farm has to be built with access to fresh water. It will be "irrigated". With Construction, it will spread irrigation to adjacent tiles, also in diagonal. Note that Cities will count as farms. City with access to fresh water has +2 health. Hills Hills are a sort of terrain feature, but they are not removable and thus in their own class. When a land tile has no hill, and is not a peak, it is flatland. Cities founded on plains hill tiles receive 2 Hammer in the city center (instead of the standard 1 Hammer). Features Unique Features Several special landmarks may appear in the map. Though referred to in Fall from Heaven as "Unique Features," these Landmarks are techincally Improvements. Thus you can have a Feature on the same tile as them (like a forest on the tile with Yggdrasil). There is a 35% chance per Feature that it will be in the game, determined upon map creation. This only applies if the Mapscript isn't written specifically to override this behavior. Flagging the "All unique features" on map creation override this setting. See also * Hell terrain * Improvements * Forest * Unique Features * Complete list of terrain feature * Understanding FFH Terrain: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/understanding-ffh-terrain.340148/ * See this wiki for basic civ4 notions on terrain. * Also this.